“ I just don’t like to be around people who can’t talk right.” A stunning admission from Joan, who had a master’s degree in speech therapy. I had asked if she planned to work when her young children went to school Joan paused, shrugged, stared into the distance, and said, “I’m just going to enjoy my babies.”
“How old are your kids?” I asked to shift to a more comfortable topic. While she spoke about her two little girls, I marveled at how Joan could not have learned of her aversion to speech therapy before graduation. Didn’t she have something like student teaching? The irony of Joan’s experience made an impression on me.

Years later, I recalled that Joan’s revelation had led me to pull out all stops to get a summer job at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission before committing to graduate school in city planning and moving to Baltimore to work as a city planner.
It was 1964, the spring of my junior year. I had already applied to the Graduate School of City and Regional Planning at Ohio State, but I wasn’t completely sure about this new profession. Professor Schwirian had sparked my interest in city planning in his urban sociology class, but when I spoke with him about it in his office, he warned me that local politics made it difficult for planners to be effective. Their plans were typically ignored by mayors and city council members more interested in ingratiating themselves with local developers, property owners, and other businessmen who contributerd to their election campaigns. Another professor had dismissed planning studies that always concluded with the need for more studies as an excuse for inaction by politicians. In addition, city planning was not an established profession like architecture, engineering or medicine.
I needed to know more about this field before I spent two years of my life to get a specialized master’s degree. I did not have any first hand knowledge of what city planners did when they sat down at their drafting tables each day.
A series of articles in our newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, had featured the Blue Plan. One of the librarians in the periodical room at OSU’s Thomas Oxley Library found the series on the microfiche and showed me how to use a machine to scroll through the articles. I learned that the goal was a comprehensive plan for the future of not just the City of Columbus, but the entire 12-county region. Planners were projecting the population for 1985, then two decades away, determining where growth would occur, and calculating the number of highways, schools, sewers, and everything else that would have to be built for the growth that was just over the horizon. It sounded pretty interesting. Columbus had experienced rapid growth in the two decades since the end of World War II. No one doubted that Columbus was becoming a major metropolis on the plains of central Ohio.
The Blue Plan was under development at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. City planners were engaged in this intriguing enterprise in my city. A summer job working on the Blue Plan might be a possibility there. The Dispatch articles had quoted Harmon Merwyn and identified him as the Director of the agency. I called, asked to speak with him, but was connected to his secretary Mrs. Hilda Helwig. I said that I was an OSU student interested in city planning and requested an appointment with Mr. Merwyn. She promised to speak with him, and call me back. I offered to call back since I was on campus and unavailable by phone most days. After a couple more phone calls, she informed me that I could meet with Mr. Merwyn two weeks from the coming Tuesday.
The next Tuesday, I put my charcoal gray, pin-striped suit, a white dress shirt and a narrow red knit tie in a shopping bag. It was my high school graduation suit, in fact, it was my only suit. After finishing my four-hour morning shift as a janitor at the Union Department Store, I changed into the dress clothes in the bathroom.
As I drove through downtown on High Street, the sleek new office towers and grimy old buildings drew my attention unlike before. I had never looked as closely at the grand old Neil House Hotel, the massive Ohio State House, and the huge Lazarus Department Store that I had seen many times before. I drove on to the modest, one-story building that may have once been a car dealership with bricks where show window once were. It was on South High Street near German Village, an authentic immigrant neighborhood where my mother recalled that she sat through sermons at St. Mary’s given in German.
When I stepped through the front door, I found myself in a small entryway with pamphlets, brochures and reports displayed like magazines at the drug store. A bell had chimed automatically and soon a middle-aged woman with gray, frizzy hair was in the opposite doorway with a question on her face.
“My name is Michael Calvert, a student at Ohio State…”
“ But your appointment is two weeks from today, Mr. Calvert. I put it in his book right after we spoke on Friday.”
had said with a pained look on her face.
“Oh, I know it’s not today, Mrs Helwig. I just wanted to see if there is any information on the Blue Plan available that I could review to prepare for my meeting with Mr. Merwyn”
“Thank goodness,” she said with an exaggerated sigh, hand on her chest. “I was afraid there was some misunderstanding. I can give you these, a brochure on our agency and one on the Blue Plan. That’s really all we have except for our first two technical monographs. We have a limited supply so we don’t give those away. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for the brochures. I know you cannot give the monographs to me, but could you lend them to me? I could return them in a week.”
“Well… “ she said very slowly, drawing the word out to two syllables. “I guess it would be all right. You could bring them back when you meet with Mr. Merwyn. I doubt that anyone will even miss them,” she said with growing confidence. She plucked the two blue, spiral-bound booklets from the shelf, and held them out to me with a with a self-satisfied smile. I thanked her profusely as I backed out the door to the sidewalk.
The following Tuesday, I changed into my graduation suit, struggled to tie a respectable Windsor knot, and drove through downtown with its newly relevant buildings, to the commission. Mrs. Helwig answered the bell soon after I entered.
As soon as she came into the entryway, I quickly said “I know my appointment is next week, but I’ve read the monographs you let me borrow and I wanted to return them. I thought Mr. Merwyn might need them.”
“Well, very good, Mr. Calvert. I’ll tell Mr. Merwyn that you’ve returned the monographs. I hope you enjoyed them. They are very technical. I know, I typed every word. I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
A week later, Mrs. Helwig promptly greeted me and admitted me to the mysterious area beyond the entryway, down a hall past a room with several men leaning over drafting tables and into Mr. Merwyn’s office. She quietly closed the door behind her. The windowless room was paneled with imitation wood like I had seen in basement rec rooms. The paneling was covered with maps, all titled “The Mid-Ohio Region.” Each map showed a the same large Rorsach blot in bright color schemes. A spiderweb of roads and the meandering Scoito and Olentangy Rivers were common to all the maps.
Mr. Merwyn rose to a crouch behind his desk, extended his hand and introduced himself with just his name, “Harmon Merwyn. Have a seat.”
A few strands of dark red hair were splayed over his splotchy, bald head, connecting the thick, red hair above his collar. Bushy eyebrows arched above his pale blue eyes flanked by thick auburn sideburns flecked with grey. His pale brown suit was wrinklled and his tie was a faded gray shade without a pattern.
A large ashtray filled with butts smoked down to the filters and a plain white coffee mug with a brown stain inside were the only things on his his desk other than scattered papers and manila folders. The desktop itself was completely covered.
He sighed audibly as if he regretted agreeing to this appointment, and said, “I understand that you’re a student at OSU. Are you writing a term paper?”
“No. I am thinking about going for a master’s in city planning in city planning. I have talked with Professor Isreal Stollman, head of the graduate program at Ohio State. I have an application form, but I’m not sure about city planning.
“Is Stollman is a good man. He’s building an excellent program at OSU. We have a shortage of trained city planners, not just here but across the country. The 1964 Transportation Act passed by congress last year makes a comprehensive, regional master plan a requirement for federal highway funds by 1968. Every planning director in the country, including me, is scrambling to staff up to produce a plan like the Blue Plan before the deadline. Qualified city planners are in great demand these days.”
“That’s certainly good to know. My major is social studies – urban sociology, economics, and history, not architecture or engineering. Will that be a problem?”
“Not at all. A lot of city planners my age began as architects and landscape architects. Some have graduate degrees in city planning and some don’t, but that’s changing. We don’t really need planners with a design background to develop the Blue Plan because it’s a regional plan. Social science is an excellent foundation for regional planning. City planning, too. Designers can be hired for specific sites, but planners are needed for broad, comprehensive regional and city plans. I am recruiting trained city planners for three positions, and I would be glad to get three with social science backgrounds.”
“City planning is an intriguing field, but I am not sure I am ready to make a commitment to two years of graduate school. I would like to get a better understanding about what it means to work as a city planner. I read the first two monographs for the Blue Plan, and got a general idea, but…”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Helwig said you had borrowed them. Did you actually read them? They are theoretical planning studies. We’re working on a dozen more on the need for highways and everything else by 1985. Finally we’ll evaluate alternative schematic plans for the entire region and then draft the 12-county Blue Plan. The we hope it will be adopted by our board and local governments. It’s a big undertaking.” By this time, Mr. Merwyn was transformed, sitting up in his chair, waving his hands around to make his points.” I was impressed with his passion for planning when he concluded.
“The Blue Plan is an exciting project I would really like to work here this summer and see how a plan takes shape. I want to see how professional planners do their work. I am sure I could assist your planners in some way. I will do anything to help out – sharpen pencils, color maps, get coffee. A summer job here would be great for me. I hope you will consider me for a job this summer.”
Mr. Merwyn’s benevolent, fatherly demeanor clouded over and his smooth face crumpled into a frown. He looked down at the helter skelter on his desk for a long moment. When his watery, faded eyes met mine, he said, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any summer jobs budgeted. There is a lot of resistance to city planning. It’s new and some people believe planning and especially zoning threaten the American way of life. Some of the mayors around Columbus say it’s the beginning of socialism. One county commissioner called me a dupe of the communists. Can you believe it?” His voice had risen and he concluded with his hands turned upward.”
“Any way we don’t have funding for any summer jobs at this time. You can check back with me if you wish, but I don’t ho;d out much hope for anything this summer. I do encourage you to pursue a career in city planning. I am confident that it’s going to become an important profession in the future. Good luck to you , Mr. Calvert.”
As I thanked Mr. Merwyn for his time, he was picking up his phone and reaching to dial a number. Mrs. Helwig appeared in the hallway with her frozen smile to show me out through the entryway.
Although I didn’t have a job, I was elated to be in a city planning office where maps plotting the future development of Columbus were spread on drafting tables. I took note Mr. Merwyn’s words “not at this time” and I chose to take them literally. They were a beacon of hope for me. After all, I recalled, he said I could “check back” with him. I was determined to get a summer job there.
I changed clothes at the Shell station near campus and met my best friend, Tim, at the Student Union cafeteria. Over a cup of coffee, I told him I was going to get this summer job. At least, I was going to put on a full court press.
The next Tuesday, I hung my graduation suit in one of the janitor’s lockers at the Union Department Store, and when the floors were swept, carpets cleaned and the store had opened, I stepped into a stall in the restroom, slipped on the suit, and got the Windsor knot right the first time.
Soon I was in the entryway of the planning agency. Mrs. Helwig seemed a bit flustered as she stood in the door that led to Mr. Merwyn’s office. “Oh, Mr. Calvert, I’m surprised to see you. Mr. Merwyn didn’t tell me he had asked you to come back today.”
“He said I could check back with him about the position he had discussed with me. Is he available?”
“Mr. Merwyn’s in a meeting,” she responded with her poise regained. “I’ll certainly tell him you came by to inquire about a position.” She radiated self-assurance with her professional smile and her head cocked slightly to one side.
Every Tuesday morning I returned in my charcoal suit with different ties I had borrowed from my dad’s tie rack. I had nearly identical conversations with Mrs. Helwig in the entryway. On my third such visit, she suggested that I could just call. She promised to let Mr. Merwyn know that I had called.
“Thank you,” I nodded, “but I can drop by easily. It’s on my way to campus.” Again the Chesire cat smile. I would not have been surprised by a curtsy.
On the fifth Tuesday, I was repeating my lines flatly in an abbreviated form and Mrs. Helwig went off script. “Mr. Merwyn said that he would like to see you if you came by again this morning. This way, please.”
I was jolted out of my comfortable Tuesday morning routine. It occurred to me that I might be about to get a stern lecture on my impertinence and firmly told that there would be no summer job and not to come back. I could envision Mr. Merwyn’s stern face as I began to form words of apology in my mind.
Mr. Merwyn was not scowling. Much to my relief, he was smiling broadly and leaning back in his desk chair. “Well, Mr. Calvert, you have certainly been persistent and it may have paid off for you. I have some jobs this summer funded by a federal grant we have received. Now, I want to be clear that these are not city planning positions. They are land use coding jobs, recording information about the location of houses, stores, factories, and other land uses on maps. You’ll be sitting on a stool at a drafting table all day long. Is this something you would be interested in?”
“Well, yes,” I stammered. “I would definitely be interested,” I continued in a firmer voice. “I’ve applied to the graduate program at OSU, but I want to be sure that city planning is the field I want to pursue.”
“ Again, please understand that you won’t be doing city planning this summer, but I think you’ll get some sense of the planning process for the Blue Plan.”
“Great! When can I start? My finals are the last week in May.”
“ How about Monday, June 4th? We begin work at 8:30 am. By the way, the pay is a dollar, fifty an hour, but no benefits for summer jobs.”
“I’ll be here. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this summer job in city planning.”
After thanking Mrs. Helwig several times as I passed her desk and walked through the entryway. On the sidewalk, I could barely contain myself until I reached my car. With the windows rolled up, I screamed “Yes! Yes! Yes!” at the top of my lungs and pounded the padded dash with my fists.
I have always been grateful that I did not commit to a career blindly like my neighbor Joan who didn’t find out she didn’t really like her chosen profession until after it was too late. I have also said, mostly tongue in cheek, that even though I was exposed to the practice of planning that summer, I still became a city planner.

“What’s going to be your major?” Mom, Dad, Uncle Bill, and Grandmother kept asking and they weren’t the only one. Everyone wanted to know: Gus Iannarino when I came in for a meatball sandwich at Teritas Pizza, parents of my friends at the drug store, and sales associates at The Union Department Store where I was a part-time janitor with other college students. They all wanted to know what I was “going into.” I was one of the very few from my neighborhood who had gone to college.

They were disappointed when I admitted that I had not decided, and added that I did not need to declare a major until I was a junior. They wanted to hear that I was going to be a doctor, lawyer or an engineer. My vague response sounded like an excuse and led to some doubt that I was a serious young man. Maybe they thought I was just hanging out at Ohio State instead of getting a job.

A lot of middle-aged people told me stories about how they had planned to go to college, but something had intervened. For some, it was marriage; for others it was a good job at the GM plant or military service that would qualify them for the GI Bill. A few had started, but stopped, intending to stay out for just a year until they got they got their car note paid off. They spoke wistfully that they wished they had a degree, and encouraged me to stay in college. I was worried that I might be saying something similar in the future.

I was living at home as the oldest of six. Dad was a World War II “shell shock” victim, in and out of the VA hospital in Chillecothe. Mom was struggling to pay the bills with her salary from the Department of Motor Vehicles and Dad’s disability check. It was difficult, but she managed when he was in Chillecothe. When he got the VA check from the mailbox before she got home from work, the money often disappeared and there were crises. From time to time, the phone was disconnected, credit at Stafford’s Grocery was cut off, and a couple of times, we briefly lost gas and electricity. I could have dropped out for a quarter or two to help her, but she would have been devastated and I feared that I would never get back to college. I had paid all my direct expenses since I threw papers in the eighth grade, and occasionally “loaned” money to Dad and Mom. At this point, I was able to add extra hours on weekends and evenings to my four-hour morning shift at The Union to help Mom with the bills.

As a sophomore, the question of a major and a career often surfaced when I was trying to concentrate on dry textbooks in the library or during a break from studying at the Student Union, my home base on campus. Quadratic equations had stumped me in advanced algebra in high school, so I had ruled out anything involving math and science. I had acquired the notion that business was mundane, boring and self-serving. Perry Mason’s TV role made the legal profession appear more interesting than business. Law school was definitely an option.

Kennedy’s inaugaration speech extolling “what you can do for your country” had great appeal for me and my fellow students. One of my first electives was urban sociology. Professor Kent Schwerian lectured on the growth of cities and the challenges they presented. He spoke of how progressive mayors were working to reform city politics and impose enlightened urban policies. On CBS TV, Walter Cronkite solemnly intoned questions like “Can America’s Cities Survive?” Newsweek and Time Magazine splashed similar questions across their covers. I signed up for additional sociology courses as well as economics and political science, and wrote papers on promising urban renewal projects in Boston and Detroit and on the regrettable conformity in Levittown and other suburban subdivisions.

One afternoon, taking a break from reading and highlighting Samuelson’s Economics at the Student Union, I picked up the current issue of Time Magazine featuring William Pereira, an urban planner on the cover. The article began “ The black and grey Bentley snaked south out of Los Angeles along the Santa Ana Freeway, shook free of the traffic, and began to climb fast on a mountain road through the open country. At the wheel was a shapely brunette beauty—secretary, assistant and part-time chauffeur to the man in the back seat listening to Mantovani on a built-in stereophonic tape recorder.”

It sounded pretty good! He was planning a entire new community on the huge Irvine Ranch in Southern California, the site of a new branch of the University of California and a vast surrounding area of farms and orchards. He was described as a leader in the new field of city planning. At the end of the article, the ten universities with programs offering masters degrees in the new profession were listed and Ohio State was on the list.

I picked up my books and walked across the Oval in the center of campus toward Brown Hall, home of the School of Architecture. Just inside the door was an office with City and Regional Planning above the door. I marched in and told the receptionist that I was interested in learning about the graduate program. She put a packet in my hand, and asked me to have a seat.

“Professor Stollman can see you,” she said as she motioned me to enter the next office. A bald middle-aged Buddha with a round face, a tonsure of gray hair, a sweater vest, and a smile that stretched across his entire face rose and offered his hand. We spoke for about fifteen minutes about my interest in cities and my courses. He suggested adding statistics and public speaking, and noted that a majority of the graduate students in City planning were no longer architects graduates. I was flattered that he encouraged me to consider enrolling early because there was growing number of applicants for the program that could only accept a limited number. As he stood up, he handed me a brochure on the Pittsburg Plate Glass Fellowship in Urban Planning. “Oh, yes, this just came in. You may want to submit an application.” Again, the Buddha smile.

I looked over the brochures and the application. I was not ready to apply to the planning program, but the fellowship application had a deadline just two weeks. It didn’t appear to be too long so I began to fill out the forms. I adapted a paper I had written for Urban Sociology for the required essay. I called Mr. Dilenschneider, the father of my best friend in high school and requested a brief letter of recommendation, and he readily agreed. Professor Schwirian also promised a reference. When the letters arrived, I proofed the application, tweaked the essay and dropped it in the mail slot at the Student Union.

A few days later I recalled that I had seen a small room with a sign over the door saying Career Opportunities at the Student Services Center when I was looking over the part-time job openings posted on the bulletin board. On my way back to the Student Union, I stopped there and stepped into that small room. I found a library table, a few wooden chairs and bookshelves. One shelf had a dozen or so green and white books bigger than the Columbus phone book. They were labeled the 1962 Employment Survey, United States Department of Labor. I looked up “city planner” and projections showed a big increase in demand and salaries over $6,000 per year, as high as engineers and better than most jobs. I was impressed, but not ready to commit. Law school was still an option.

As I prepared to leave the Student Center, I saw a sign on an open door across the hall from Career Opportunities that said Counseling. The receptionist just inside the door looked at me expectantly and asked “Would like to schedule some counseling?”

I hesitated, but thought why not? Choosing a career would be one of the most important decisions of my life. Well, yes, I think I would.” Before I left, I had an appointment to see Dr. Max Reichman the next day at 11 am.

I finished my tasks early and left The Union Department Store at 10 am sharp to find street parking and walk to the Student Center. I was shown to a velvet couch in Dr. Reichman’s office immediately. I sat on the edge of the low couch and leaned forward with my hands on my knees.

Dr. Reichman’s hair reminded me of the portrait of Beethoven on one of my album covers. Unlike Beethoven, he had a mustache, goatee, and rectangular glasses with heavy black frames. He looked to be thirty-something and wore a brown corduroy suit with a vest and a blue knit tie. He busied himself by filling his Meerschaum pipe with tobacco from a tin of Price Albert tobacco, tamping it down, lighting it repeatedly, a puffing vigorously until he was exhaling blue smoke.

“Please relax, Mr. Calvert. You might be more comfortable if you lie down. May I call you Michael or Mike?” said Dr. Reichman with a small smile.

“Mike is fine” I replied, ignoring his strange suggestion.

“Please start by telling me about yourself, beginning with your childhood,mother and father. Please be completely open. I assure you that everything you say will be strictly confidential. I am here to help you whatever your problem is.”

“My problem is choosing a major and a profession. I’ve accepted that I need more than a BA. Law School is a possibility, but I recently learned about city planning. It pays well and the Master’s is only two years. Law School is three years. I need to get out of school and start making some money, but …”

“Nothing’s bothering me,” I replied with some irritation. “I am just trying to figure out whether I should go to law school or get a master’s in city planning. Isn’t that what this counseling service is supposed to do?”

“Now, Mike, you know you made this appointment to seek help. Please, tell me what really made you sign up for counseling. Do you have a girlfriend? Have you had girlfriends? You can trust me,” he said imploring me with his palms turned up and his shoulders frozen in a shrug.

“This is a mistake. I don’t need psychological counseling. I thought this was about career opportunities. I’m sorry to have taken your time,” I said as I stood up to go.

“Mike, I can help you if you’ll sit down and share your true feelings with me. Please.” Again the imploring look.

“I’m outta here!” and walked through the door as I heard Dr. Reichman say again,

“Please, don’t go.”

I went to the third floor lounge of the Student Union where there was a large stone fireplace with brightly colored, modern furniture. I knew my friends seldom ventured beyond the cafeteria and the second floor lounge. With my feet crossed on a low table, I stared intently at the fire as if there might be a message in the flames, some wisdom to guide me and make me comfortable with a decision. I pondered my options for an hour or so, but left for the cafeteria with no decision. I told myself that I would sleep on it, and there was no need to be make a decision yet.

I returned to the third floor fireplace several times over the next few days. Attorney Perry Mason argued for a life in the courtroom. He said, “If you really want to help the poor, you could be a public defender. Planner William Pereira pointed to a broad vista of the Irvine Ranch with a roll of blueprints and said “Be bold and plan the cities of the future.” I was whipsawed. No decision.

When I walked into the kitchen at home late that evening, everyone was in bed. I found a thick envelope addressed to me scotch-taped to the refrigerator where Mom knew I would find it. The return address was Pittsburg Plate Glass Foundation. I ripped it open and saw the first word: “Congratulations.” I read on to be sure that a fellowship in city planning had been awarded to me. I took a deep breath and found that the decision had been made. After all, law school was three years and city planning was only two.

A job to pay for my education was my objective, but I learned some lessons as a janitor at the Union Department Store. I was a sophomore at Ohio State University in 1962. I needed money to pay for tuition, books and my modest expenses as a “townie” living at home.
I saw the ad for a janitor on the bulletin board at the Student Services Center. Back at the student union, I dropped a quarter in the pay phone and a voice cheerfully announced, “The Union Department Store. How may I direct your call?”
I was connected to the extension on the ad and heard a gruff “Shue, here.” Thinking I had been transferred to the shoe department, I stammered, “ Er… I was calling to apply for the janitorial job advertised at Ohio State.”
“OK, when can you start?” was the reply.
Startled and still confused, I said, “Well, anytime, I guess. Right away.”
“Can you come in tomorrow at 10? Just ask for Bob Shue. Everyone knows me. It’s the Union Department Store, Long and High, downtown.”
“Yes, I have no classes until noon.”
“ Good, just tell the guard at the front door, you’re there to see Bob Shue.”

I knew that the Union was a fancy downtown store. My family did not shop there, but I had seen the ornate, six-story building at Long and High Streets and the swank ads in the newspaper. As I walked to the entrance, I looked at the show windows that featured thin mannequins with what I assumed were the latest fashions in men’s and women’s clothing. I pushed the brass bar across the revolving glass door framed by dark wood and entered a brightly lit, high-ceilinged store with rows of glass display cases aligned on a shiny terrazzo floor.
As soon as I spoke Mr. Shue’s name, the elderly, uniformed guard nodded impassively and led me down the steps next to the elevator to the basement, and said to a dark-haired man in a painter’s white pants and shirt, “This kid’s here to see you.”
Shue ignored the guard and scowled at me for a few seconds, and said “You the college kid that called yesterday?”
“Yes, sir.”
He directed me to a small room near the loading dock. There was just enough room for a battered wooden desk and two badly scratched wooden chairs. When he shut the door, the office seemed even smaller. A single florescent tube flooded the room with light that made me frown.
“I was hired here as a painter when I finished my third hitch in the Navy. I had been around the world twice and I liked the Navy fine. I started as ___ and worked my way up to _____. Everyone told me to re-up and retire with a full pension after 20 years,” he began, “but I wanted to see what I could do in civilian life.”
I still handle all the painting, but now I’m also in charge of the cleaning crew and they want me to do security, too. I’ve got my eye on the box department. Catherine, the old woman that runs it, needs to retire.” He paused and sat up straight, “I plan to be taking on other responsibilities here. You know there’s five stores besides the downtown and they plan to expand. I aim to run a major part of this company.”
I was impressed with his ambition. I also had never met anyone who had traveled around the world once, let alone twice.
“When I took over the janitors, it was a sorry operation. We had all these … Negros, Kennedy says we’re supposed to call them. But, anyway, they called in sick half the time, hardly worked when they did come in, and they couldn’t finish before the store opened. Customers don’t want to see them on the floors. Hell, I caught some of them hiding merchandise in the trash for their buddies to pick up in the alley. I saved the evidence and was ready to turn them over to the police, but Mr. Robert said to just terminate the bastards.” He leaned back and crossed his feet on the corner of the desk. “I went to Mr. Robert, the owner, and told him I could save him money by paying college kids a little more, a dollar forty an hour instead of 75 cents, and this would cut down on the absenteeism, and probably eliminate the stealing. He thought that was a damn smart idea. He told me to work with Mr. Kahn, the personnel director, to get rid of them all except for old Mr. Dunn, a favorite of his father’s for some damn reason and Doug, Miss Bailey’s kid. Doug’s mother has been a seamstress in the Bridal Shop for years. Dunn is the goddamned slowest moving thing on two feet, but Doug’s OK and I needed someone to show the college kids what to do. I’m busy with other things Mr. Robert wants me to handle for him.”
I nodded sympathetically and gave Shue my earnest attention because I needed a job. I was intrigued with this glimpse into the world of work and business. My buddies in the neighborhood were driving late model cars and making good money driving trucks, working construction, and selling used cars. I had no idea what kind of a job I might get with a BA in a couple of years. I had thought of switching from the Arts College to the Commerce College so I could get a job in business when I graduate.
Shue looked at his watch, stood up and said “You can start tomorrow. We begin at 6 am and finish at 10. It’s $1.40/hour, every day except Sunday. Friday’s payday. OK?”
“Thank you. I’ll be here,” I replied as Shue opened the door. I was surprised that I had been hired so quickly, but delighted to have a job.
Early the next morning, I found seven guys just inside the entrance, some sprawled on the terrazzo floor and others leaning against display cases and columns and drinking coffee. Shue stood and leaned on a glass display case next to two round pots of coffee and a column of paper cups. He said to his crew, “This here’s Mike, another college guy.” He motioned me toward the coffee. He motioned to a young, attractive black fellow and said “Doug’s been around a while and he’ll show you the ropes. All these other guys, except Dunn here, nodding towards an older Negro, are new, from Ohio State.”
After 30 minutes and two cups of coffee, Shue stepped forward and said “All right, listen up. Doug, you and Mike do carpets on two, three and four. Pete’s on the buffer on one; Davis and Dye do the beauty shop and the lunch room, Broyles brothers are doing wastebaskets and offices. Dunn, shit houses.” I later learned that everyone’s job changed periodically except for Dunn’s. His never changed.
As Doug and I went to get the Hoovers in the farthest room in the musty basement, he said, “When we get up there, just look for dirt and bits of paper. Do the whole floor? Shit, man, shit. We’d never finish by nine when doors open.” We took the elevator to the fifth floor, and our Hoovers roared as we began with the beige carpet in women’s sportswear, went on to the black shag rug in lingerie and then the white carpet in the bridal department where heavy sweetness of canna lilies reminded me of my cousin’s funeral.
Just before 7:30 am, Doug turned off his sweeper, began walking toward the elevator, and said over his shoulder “Break time.” He led me to the restaurant on the mezzanine where the rest of the cleaning crew was sitting on the red swivel stools at the lunch counter, drinking coffee and debating OSU’s chances against the highly favored football powerhouse Purdue on Saturday. Shue was behind a glass case getting yesterday’s doughnuts and cinnamon rolls for everyone. After thirty minutes we returned to the floors and resumed our tasks.
A short time later, Shue came to men’s suits and outerwear, and told me to do carpets on six. Doug kept vacuuming without looking up. Executive offices were on six, the top floor of the building. I began in the receptionist’s area and moved into a large office with an oriental rug, dark wood paneling and old paintings in ornate frames. On the door, the nameplate said Robert H. Levy, President. I was startled to see five twenty-dollar bills fanned out on the corner of the large desk. I quickly realized that it was a test of my honesty, and kept vacuuming.
By 9 am when the store opened, we were all out of sight in the basement as instructed by Shue. We loaded trash into a large bin by the roll down door, emptied the Hoovers, stowed our brooms and wheeled trash cans in chicken wire enclosures, and continued the argument about the point spread in the OSU- Purdue game.
Just before 10 am, Shue came out of his tiny office and told everyone but me that they could go. When we were alone, he instructed me to go to the end of our equipment area and turn off the lights. When I made my way back through the dark to the lighted passageway, Shue said, “OK, you didn’t glow in the dark from those dusted twenty dollar bills on Mr. Robert’s desk. I’ve had some guys light up like a Christmas tree, but I guess you’re honest. I promised Mr. Robert that we’ll not have any thieves on our crew. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Wow, I thought, Mom would be proud of me. Dad would probably say you’d have to be a moron to fall for it. In any case, I was pleased to be learning something about business.
Shue was proud of his college boys, and Mr. Kahn, the personnel director, was pleased with the efficiency move he and Shue had recommended to Mr. Robert. The OSU boys were a little more costly, but they completed their tasks and disappeared into the basement every day before the buyers, sales associates, and customers arrived. This was accomplished on time even when two or three students did not show up. Half the crew could clean the store.
I had helped my friend Tim from the old neighborhood get on the crew. He was two or three years older and was about to be drafted when he enrolled at Ohio State. Vietnam was now a shooting war. In addition to a full course load, he was a bouncer at the Vogue Lounge, a Columbus night club. He was affable greeter at the foot door, had a lot friends, and at 6’ 4” , he looked the part, but Tim was not a fighter. His technique was to watch the crowd and spot trouble brewing. He quickly approached the antagonists and, if he couldn’t defuse the dispute, he pushed the guys toward the door as he told them to “take it outside.” His buddies often helped get them out the door, and brawls seldom occurred in the club. There were some good fights in the parking lot that brought patrons flooding outside. The relatively rare “girl fights” attracted the biggest crowds because, in addition to snatching hair and gouging eyes, they ripped blouses and bras off their each other.
I gave Tim a ride each morning and, more than a few times, he asked me to pick him up at the Vogue Lounge where regulars often partied on after the door was locked. With a cup of coffee in hand, unshaven and hair more disheveled than usual, Tim groaned as he sank heavily into the front seat. His account of the night’s highlights were probably exaggerated, but certainly entertaining. He rolled down the window in an effort to sober up, even on the coldest days, but was soon asleep as I drove downtown.
After we arrived at the store, Tim got more coffee, but often dozed as the crew sprawled on the floor near the store entrance. After Shue gave us our assigned tasks and concluded as always with “Dunn, shit houses,” several of us took Tim up the elevator to Ladies Coats on three where he crawled behind rack of coats along the wall. Shue was suspicious, and came prowling about to check on him, but we covered for him, saying he was on a different floor. We woke him at break time and he crawled out for the coffee break – a little more sober, but still as miserable as he looked.
We had plenty of time to get everything done without Tim. In fact, half the crew could clean the store before 9 AM, and we just puttered around in the basement until 10 AM. We were on the clock at 6 AM, but drank coffee for half an hour and then took another half hour for a break. Shue’s cleaning crew was hardly a model of efficiency. When one guy quit, I asked Shue if we really needed to replace him, Shue said, “ Damn right we’ll replace him. I got the money in my budget and I don’t want to ever have to explain to Mr. Robert why the store is not cleaned when we open.”
Early one morning as I was sweeping the beauty shop on five, I heard Doug shouting from the elevator door “Kahn’s here! Kahn’s here!”. A Paul Revere dispatched by Shue warning everyone to look busy since Mr. Kahn, the personnel director and Mr. Robert’s son-in-law, had inexplicably come in very early. Shue had convinced him that converting to college guys had been a successful efficiency move, and he now claimed it as his innovation. Fortunately Tim did not crawl out from beneath Ladies Coats at that time. Our break was very short, and Shue didn’t risk a raid on the pastry case that morning. For weeks Doug’s cry was a source of amusement and parody. Sometimes in the early morning we would call out to him, “Kahn here?”
We relieved our boredom with impractical jokes. One morning after the break, Doug and Bob left the restaurant a little early. We should have been suspicious because no one went back to work before Shue declared the break was over. When Tim and I walked past the perfume department, they ambushed us brandishing perfume bottles with atomizers and laughing fiendishly as they sprayed us with Chanel No. 5, _____ and other undoubtedly expensive fragrances. When the attack was over, Tim said plaintively, “How the hell are we going to go to class smelling like French whores?” More uproarious laughter. Shue came around the corner and everyone got quiet. He knew something was up, but just growled “All right, you guys, get back to work.”
Of course, we counterattacked on the subsequent morning and escalated by t removing the atomizers and dousing our opponents with open vials when they least expected it on other floors. This went on several days until the dour old woman who sat at the perfume counter became alarmed when she found the sample perfume bottles on the case missing in the mornings. She complained to Shue, and he went into action. First, he interrogated each of us individually like the “good cops” he had seen on TV. He solemnly pledged confidentiality and asked us to tell him who was smuggling perfume to a girlfriend, but he got nothing but shrugs and blank looks. His sense of smell must have been very weak, because some of those taken aside for questioning had been victims that morning. Shue then decided that shoplifters were grabbing the perfume at closing time. He positioned himself prominently at the perfume department each evening. No more empty bottles. He sternly reported to Kahn and Mr. Robert that he had put a stop to perfume heists by a gang of thieves.
Shue was rewarded with a new responsibility for security, particularly shoplifting. Wearing a dark suit, he announced to us at our break that “Shrinkage was growing, and Mr. Robert had named him Store Detective to put a stop to it.” He explained that the sales associates had been directed to broadcast “Code 7” and the name of their department if they suspected shoplifting.
Soon Shue would hear “Code 7” and hurry to the location, determine who the suspects were with discrete looks and nods between him and the sales associates, follow them out of the store and confront them. He had some success in retrieving merchandise in return for allowing frightened offenders, mostly kids and women, to leave and promise never come back under threat of arrest, prosecution and jail time. Shue regularly regaled us during breaks with his new role as Store Detective, a title we learned he had bestowed on himself.
As we were sitting in the basement waiting for quitting time to roll around, “Code 7, Jewelry” came over the public address system. Shue said sternly, “That’s my page. Probably a shoplifter” and he strode off, straightening his tie.
Tim and I waited a couple of minutes and crept up the back stairs next to Jewelry just in time to see Shue hurry out the side door and turn into the alley. We followed and watched as Shue caught up with a stout, well-dressed black woman wearing a hat with a fancy feather, and called out to her. She pivoted and swung a black purse by the shoulder strap in a high arc and clubbed Shue on the head. He staggered and she hit him twice again with the purse. Then she came at him with her fists pumping and pushed him to the pavement. When he didn’t get up, she turned and strutted down the alley, hurriedly but with her head high, and disappeared around the corner.
Tim and I stepped back as Shue slowly got to his feet holding onto the wall. When he came into the store, he said “ Goddamn shoplifter had two accomplices that jumped me, but I ran those bastards off. I told Mr. Robert that I need to be armed.”
“Hell, yes! These damn shoplifters are dangerous.” We sympathized with him, helped him to the restroom downstairs, and said we had to go to class. We barely got out the door before we erupted in laughter that lasted all the way to campus.

As I was emptying the wastebasket and ashtrays in the Men’s Footwear, Shue squatted behind the counter and said, “Yup. She’s shorted this one, too.” He stood up with a sly smile, and announced with evident satisfaction, “Goddam Catherine is not getting shoe boxes here and the coat boxes to Men’s Outerwear.” He made some notations in the notebook he kept in his shirt pocket and walked toward the Men’s Business Attire.
My last wastebaskets were in the basement where the Personnel Office, Merchandise Receiving and Mark Up, the Display Workshop, and the Box Department shared space with the boiler room, freight elevator, and equipment storage. Miss Catherine was at her desk beside the long shelves of stacks of white boxes embossed with The Union logo. Rectangular boxes of various sizes for customers and piles of white tissue paper were arrayed along with special boxes for umbrellas, men’s ties, women’s hats and many other purchases.

Catherine, a tiny slightly stooped woman with frizzy gray hair, presided over the Box Department. She cheerfully greeted me when I came for her trash and asked about my courses. She related that she had attended finishing school, but was unprepared to go to work when her husband died young. Over 30 years ago, Mr. Herbert had hired her to manage the Box Department.
Shue wrote out a proposal for using the cleaning crew to monitor the supply of boxes in the departments and to deliver additional boxes whenever there was they were short. He would not need any additional employees to take on this additional responsibility. He proposed that Catherine report to him until she retired, and there would be no need to replace her. This would be another efficiency innovation for the store.
Shue asked me to review the proposal he had his wife type on store stationery. I corrected some typos and crossed out a paragraph that had been duplicated. When I gave it back to Shue, I suggested that he change it to allow Catherine to continue to manage the Box Department with the cleaning crew monitoring the inventory on the floors and delivering boxes for her.
Shue snarled and said, “That old bitch needs to retire. I am sure as hell not going to work for her, and I’m not going to let her order my people around. Don’t they teach you about chain of command at the university?”
When I asked him about the Box Department a few weeks later, he muttered, “That goddam old woman has got to retire soon, then I’ll take over her department.”
“Was that Mr. Robert’s response to your proposal?”
“Not exactly. He said that no one has complained, and she can run the Box Department as long as she wants. For Christ’s sake, Catherine is his mother’s best friend, but Mr. Robert ought to run his business on the basis of efficiency. He should have the balls to be a real businessman. Anyway that old bitch Catherine will have to retire someday soon.”
I shook my head sympathetically, and said “You gave him a good proposal for an efficiency innovation. That’s all you can do.”

As I walked away, I took some pleasure that Shue’s takeover was rejected and thought about how much plotting and scheming was involved in business. Then an angel on my shoulder reminded me that I had just offered false comfort to Shue. Just business, I rationalized.
One morning as I was emptying a trash can in the millinery shop, Shue came over with his paper coffee cup. He leaned over the glass case and said in a conspiratorial tone, “ I think I’ve got the goods on that black son of a bitch.”
“What are you talking about?,” I asked with some alarm. I assumed it was Doug, a likable guy who had become friendly with everyone on the cleaning crew.
“It’s Dunn. He’s been stealing from the store,” he said grimly as he nodded his head to provide further assurance.
“Mr. Dunn stealing clothes?” I asked incredulously. Mr. Dunn, as we called him, was in his sixties and always wore gray work clothes and drab shoes.
“ Nah, not clothes, money! I’ve got it the proof right here in this notebook,” replied Shue pulling a small spiral bound notebook from his shirt pocket.
“Maybe you don’t know it, but there’s a silver box in every stall in the seven women’s shit houses. The ladies can open it and get a Kotex. Then they drop a nickel in a slot in another box. They’ve charged five cents since the store opened, probably because it says “”5 cents” on the box, but nickels add up. Dunn’s been taking some of that money. He’s a goddam thief!”
“I’ve got the number of Kotex that went into each stall and how much money was in the box every day for the last two months. It’s come up short. Got to be Dunn. No one else does shit houses.”
Shue just nodded affirmatively and said “I got the proof, right here in this little book, and I’m going to Mr. Robert today,” and walked away. I was dumbfounded.
I told Tim as soon as we were out of the building. “Nickels, for God’s sake! Goddam nickels! Dunn’s been at the store for more than 30 years. Cleaning johns and doing scut work here before Mr. Robert came to take over for Mr. Herbert. Shue’s out of his damned mind!”
I explained how Shue, the self-styled store detective, had counted the number of Kotex and coins and meticulously recorded the discrepancy. Shue was determined to get the hapless Dunn fired for stealing.
Tim erupted, “Jesus H. Christ, we can’t let this go down. Shue’s gotta be stopped. We can’t let him screw poor Dunn. All the OSU guys will support Dunn. Let’s get everyone to go by the coffee shop right after work tomorrow morning and plan to go to Mr. Robert as a group. All he can do is fire us from this shitty job. Hell, he doesn’t want to fire all of us.”
“I’m ready! We all need to stick together and go to the mat for Dunn.”
The next morning Tim and I took everyone aside and they all said they with us. Just before we went to the basement at 9 AM, Shue came up to me scowling and shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. Mr. Robert doesn’t want to can Dunn. I showed him the numbers for the last two months. It proves that the son of a bitch has been stealing from the store. He said Mr. Herbert would never forgive him if he let Mr. Dunn go. I don’t know what Dunn’s got on the old man, but … I just can’t believe it. Shit. After I did all that work to get proof positive.”
I found Tim in the basement and told him of Mr. Robert’s decision. Word passed quickly to members of the cleaning crew. Everyone had been eager to march up to Mr. Robert’s office on six and protest. I could see the disappointment in everyone’s face. No opportunity to be heroic after all.
The next morning at nearly 6:30 am, Shue went through the assignments, paused, glared at Dunn and said more emphatically than usual, “Dunn, Shit houses.
I gave no further thought to transferring to the Commerce College and a career in business.